broker

It is singular how forcibly this passage in my narrative brings to my mind a picture which used to be, some years ago, at a broker's—that charnel-house of the comforts and graces of life. It had been taken out of its frame, and leant in a dark and dusty corner against a perpendicular armchair, whose rigid uprightness seemed suited only to the parlour of a dentist, repose being the last idea it suggested.

The peace plan was representative of Benedict's inability to appear as a neutral broker of peace